Role of verbal autopsy in cancer registration: A mixed-methods study from the population-based cancer registry of Northern India.

Verbal autopsy helped identify cancers that would have been missed during active case finding from available resources. The majority of verbal autopsy-confirmed patients belonged to vulnerable populations. Non-cooperation from community and local health systems was major challenge during verbal autopsy. Developing robust cancer awareness, patient navigation, and social support programmes will strengthen verbal autopsy. Integration of standardised and reproducible methods of verbal autopsy in cancer registry and digitalization of health information, especially in limited-resource settings with weak vital registration, will facilitate completeness in cancer registration.